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US President Donald Trump's comments come as the social media industry faces mounting scrutiny from Congress to police foreign propaganda.

US President Donald Trump. (Image: Reuters)

Washington: US President Donald Trump said on Monday that it is "very dangerous" for social media companies like Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc to silence voices on their services.

Trump's comments in an interview with Reuters come as the social media industry faces mounting scrutiny from Congress to police foreign propaganda.

Trump has made his Twitter account - with more than 53 million followers - an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics.

Trump previously criticized the social media industry on Aug. 18, claiming without evidence in a series of tweets that unnamed companies were “totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices.” In the same post, Trump said “too many voices are being destroyed, some good & some bad.”

Those tweets followed actions taken by Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc's YouTube and Facebook to remove some content posted by Infowars, a website run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones’ own Twitter account was temporarily suspended on Aug. 15.

"I won’t mention names but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and they’re making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow," said Trump.

Trump appeared on a show produced by Infowars, hosted by Jones, in December 2015 while campaigning for the White House.

Twitter and Facebook declined to comment on Trump's statement. Apple and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In July, during a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing, executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter testified they did not remove content based on political reasons.

"Our purpose is to serve the conversation, not to make value judgments on personal beliefs," Nick Pickles, Twitter's senior strategist, said at the time.(Get detailed and live results of each and every seat in the Lok Sabha elections and state Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim to know which candidate/party is leading or trailing and to know who has won and who has lost and by what margin. Our one-of-its-kind Election Analytics Centre lets you don a psephologist’s hat and turn into an election expert. Know interesting facts and trivia about the elections and see our informative graphics. Elections = News18)